Vernon Hugh Bowman, a 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer, accompanied by his attorney Mark Walters, speaks with reporters outside the Supreme Court in Washington on Tuesday after justices heard oral arguments between Bowman and high-tech agriculture company Monsanto Co. that produces genetically engineered and patented seeds. The case considers whether Bowman violated Monsanto's patents when he planted an unmarked mix of soybeans that he bought from a grain elevator and that is often used for feed. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Attorneys for Monsanto, the largest agrochemical corporation in the world, presented arguments Tuesday to the Supreme Court explaining the company’s rights to the generations of seeds that naturally reproduce from its genetically modified strains.

The issue for the court, according to The Associated Press, is how far the patents held by the world's largest seed company extend.

More than 90 percent of American soybean farms use Monsanto's "Roundup Ready" seeds, which first came on the market in 1996.

As The Los Angeles Times reports, Bowman v. Monsanto Co. "will be decided based on the court’s interpretation of a complex web of seed and plant patent law, but the case also reflects something much more basic: Should anyone, or any corporation, control a product of life?"

WHO IS BOWMAN?

Vernon Hugh Bowman is a 75-year-old Indiana soybean farmer who bought "Roundup Ready" seeds for his main crop of soybeans, but decided to look for something cheaper for a risky, late-season soybean planting.

He went to a grain elevator that held soybeans it typically sells for feed, milling and other uses, but not as seed, according to an AP report.

Bowman reasoned that most of those soybeans also would be resistant to weed killers, as they initially came from herbicide-resistant seeds too. He was right, and he repeated the practice over eight years. The plants, according to Reuters that grew turned out to contain the Roundup Ready, which Monsanto has a patent for.

One of Monsanto’s arguments, according to The Times, is that when farmers save seed from a crop grown from patented seed, then use that seed for another crop, they are illegally making Monsanto’s seeds.

Bowman contends, according to The Post, because it was a mix that he bought - and not patented seeds from the initial sale - he could plant them and create more grain to use without having done anything wrong.

"If they then claim that I can't use that, they're forcing their patent on me," Bowman said in the report. "No law was ever passed that said no farmers can't go to the elevator and buy grain and use it, so to me they either forced their patent on me or they abandoned their patent by allowing it to be dumped it with non-Roundup grain."

According to the Supreme Court transcript, it appears Bowman's problem lies with producing a new crop with the supply he bought. In fact, Justice Stephen Breyer suggested Bowman could do anything with the bought supply except produce a new crop.

"The problem for you here, I think, is that, infringement lies in the fact that he made generation three," Breyer said in the transcript. "Now, there's another law that says you cannot make copies of a patented invention. And that law you have violated when you use it to make generation three, just as you have violated the law against assault were you to use it to commit an assault."

WHAT'S AT STAKE?

The ruling could have a ripple effect through both the farming and biotech industries.

In the biotech industry, there is a concern the outcome of the hearing could result in limits placed on patents of self-replicating technologies.

At the same time, according to Reuters, many farmer groups feel the patent system gives too much power to companies like Monsanto.

"I think the case has enormous implications," Dermot Hayes, an Iowa State University agribusiness and economics professor, told Reuters. "If Monsanto were to lose, many companies would have a reduced incentive for research in an area where we really need it right now. The world needs more food."

Maine potato farmer Jim Gerritson, president of the Organic Seed Growers and Trade Assn., which sued Monsanto over a patent issue, told The Times that the company has a monopoly on the nation's seed supply.

Monsanto said in court papers, according to the report, that "Roundup Ready" soybeans represent roughly 90 percent of all soybeans planted.

Reuters is reporting more than 50 groups filed briefs "trying to sway the court."

WORLD WIDE

According to WorldTruth.TV, roughly five million farmers are now suing Monsanto for more than $7.7 billion for "renewal" seed harvest.

Jane Berwanger, a lawyer for farmers involved with the case, spoke to The Associated Press.

"Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds," Berwanger said. "The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production.”

Meanwhile in Brazil, farmers are opposing a contract that Monsanto is offering farmers to end a dispute over royalty payments, according to Bloomberg.

The contract waives royalties on Roundup Ready soy for this year and next. In exchange, farmers would forgo claims in a patent dispute and pay royalties on seeds not yet on the market.

Justice Stephen Breyer said Bowman could make many uses of the soybeans he bought from the grain elevator. "Feed it to the animals. Feed it your family or make tofu turkey," Breyer said.

But patent law makes it illegal for Bowman to plant them. "What it prohibits here is making a copy of the patented invention and that is what he did," Breyer said.

Mark Walters, Bowman's Seattle-based lawyer, tried to focus the court on the claim that Monsanto has used patent law to bully farmers.

"What they are asking for is for the farmer to assume all the risk of farming, but yet they can sit back and control how that product is used," Walters said.

Monsanto lawyer Seth Waxman said the company put 13 years and hundreds of millions of dollars into developing herbicide-resistant seeds.

"Without the ability to limit the reproduction of soybeans containing this patented trait, Monsanto could not have commercialized its invention and never would have produced what is now the most popular patented technology" in farming, Waxman said.

The Obama administration also is backing the company.

- The Associated Press

According to The Los Angeles Times, the justices "strongly suggested" Tuesday that they would agree with Monsanto in that its patent would cover future generations of a crop.